...when a big-jowled Dixiecrat Senator leans into the microphones to ask, mock-incredulous: 'Now, Mr. Costello, isn't it in fact the case that you once cowrote and also authored a book published under the title Significant Wrap-per, in which you argued that Mr. Brown's habit of saying "Huh" and "Smokin' " and "Give it here" and "GoodGod" (pronounced as if it were one word) was not, in your opinion, ee-sen-shul to the cold dead heavy funk as practiced and popularized by my fellow native son of Georgia, Mr. Brown. In fact,' the Dixiecrat waxes prosecutorially, 'isn't it true that you stated in the pages of this alleged book that you considered the .guitarwork of Bobby Byrd, and not the individual named James Brown at all, to be the essence of that music we call "James Brown"?'

At which point Mr. Costello, eyes on the prize of a cushy lifetime judicial appointment, squirms and offers smally: 'Yes.'

Now the Dixiecrat Senator bears down: 'And what's all this I hear about you leaving phone messages on the machine of a Jamaican drug kingpin's front company back in 1989?'